How to hook up 3 monitors on 2 different cards?

[Jim Gravina]

Ill keep this short and simple....

I have a GTX280(1GB RAM) and GTX260(896MB RAM) video card.

I also have a 24" monitor as my main display AND 2-20" monitors as my "wing" displays.

I wont be doing any SLI so my question is...

Do I hook the larger 24" monitor to my more powerful card? Or do I hook up my 2 wing monitors to my more powerful card.

Thanks!
Jim

[Saied]

hook up the two monitors to the powerful graphic card

[AllenEllis]

I think whichever app a given window is in is which card will render it with. So if you're playing a QT movie you might notice a short hiccup when moving the center point between screens, as this is shifting the load to the other card.

I have never done a tri-monitor setup, but if it were me I would power my main monitor with the beefy card and the two smaller monitors with the weaker card, so that whatever is in the center screen gets the best performance.

But like I say, I've never tried it. I'd love to hear a more detailed explanation why (if) one is superior.

[evgamartin]

In the case of two different models of cards (ie two cards not in SLI) the 2nd card serves only as extra output ports. The primary GPU (designated by the GPU in PCI/e slot 1) does all the rendering. So really it doesn't matter where the monitors are plugged in.

[AllenEllis]

Are you certain about that? I was fairly sure I'd heard in numerous places that the GPU rendering happens depending on which monitor the app is running in. Case in point, playing a Quicktime movie (as I mentioned) will 'hiccup' as you move the center point to another monitor, and I believe this is the GPU load shifting.